During the first phase of the internet boom, innovators wanted to connect to people across the globe. Services like AOL and MySpace exploded by bridging geographic gaps between people. Google allowed us to search the entire world. But soon, we realized technology was taking us away from our own backyards. Local community rose as a focus – and a business – on the web. You could say it started with Facebook, connecting people based on University affiliation. Hyper-local news sites like Patch and Baristanet sprang up and brought local to life. Daily Deal sites exploded. Blogs, Twitter, Foursquare – more and more tools developed for us to think globally – and act locally. All of this together – and more! – has put the hyper-local in focus as a major driver of tech-scene development, and opportunity.

Enter Street Fight – the site devoted to the business of hyperlocal:

The intersection between location-centric services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places; locally-targeted daily deals efforts like Groupon, LivingSocial and Yipit; and more traditional “hyperlocal” news and information sites and networks like Patch.com, Everyblock, Baristanet and the East Village Local. These are all marked by big new ideas, shifting consumer behavior, and technology-enabled innovation — and a similar push of venture funding is enabling serious projects that promise to build a new world of local advertising and commerce.

At last week’s Street Fight Summit, founder and CEO of Street Fight, Laura Rich, aimed to bring together these new ideas, attitudes and technologies to examine the future path of hyperlocal. Hashable was excited to attend part of the summit and learn from some of the great presenters. Here are some highlights:

How to be a standalone Hyperlocal news site?
To survive and thrive as a standalone hyperlocal, you need a dedicated audience. Provide great content to your readers, and they will be your greatest advocates. Debra Galant of Baristanet pushed the point that as a small news site, readers are your biggest advocates and enable smaller news sites to compete with local Patch sites.

How do hyperlocal news sites compete with Patch?
At the same time, Michael Shapiro stressed that Patch is a great player in the local news field and offers the competition needed to spur great journalism.

But how do hyperlocal news sites get ads?
Debra Galant and Scott Broadbeck, editor and publisher of ARLnow.com, reiterate that their addicted readers are their biggest advocates and often function as a de facto sales team, driving local merchants to purchase ad space. The issue is, merchants don’t understand digital ads, so many local news sites sell ads like newspapers, which can often cheat the merchants. There is a definite need for companies like Google, Clickable and American Express to work with their small business customers and educate them on these new concepts, otherwise, they are missing out on huge economic growth.

Two new hyperlocal experiments stood out of the crowd: CityPockets and Zaarly

 CityPockets, founded by Cheryl Yeoh, is a virtual wallet and secondhand marketplace for daily deals. As a management tool for daily deals vouchers, CityPockets is able to glean a stunning amount of data about daily deals users and their spending habits. For example, $1.2 Billion is wasted each year due to forgotten or expired daily deals vouchers. CityPockets tries to compromise for this loss by providing users with a secondhand marketplace, with 41% of deals re-sold at a break even price and 25% for a profit. Needless to say, CityPockets made quite an impression.

Zaarly, a mobile geo-specific marketplace to buy and sell anything, is a product of New York City’s startup weekend. CEO, Bo Fishback, took the stage and offered his candid opinion on the potential for businesses to harness the power of “local”. “There’s a lot of things about this [hyperlocal] hotness that are better than the last hotness,” said Fishback, referring to the bubble burst of the 90’s. The rise of consumer mobile GPS is huge, according to Fishback and “there aren’t enough people to exploit this opportunity.” Zaarly is currently focused on building the best product to connect consumers with the people and products around them. Until then, download the Zaarly app to start buying and selling. For those in Gotham City, NYC is the biggest Zaarly market, so trust you will find some opportunities and sales (in fact, Zaarly just moved to Manhattan from San Francisco to exploit their presence in the market).

Why is NYC the right place to incubate a hyperlocal tech company?
Dave Tisch, managing director of TechStars NYC pushed that the business and population density are biggest drivers for starting up hyperlocals in the five boroughs. Owen Davis, managing director of NYC Seed, identified that while the overflowing market for hyperlocal businesses is a huge driver, the relationship to the urban environment is dramatically different is New York City, as compared to other cities across the globe, making it the perfect environment to test new tools and services.

Why Foursquare’s testing worked in NYC
Panel Moderator, Lockhart Steele, recalled a conversation he had with Dennis Crowley, founder and CEO of Foursquare. Crowley mentioned that the best part about testing products in New York City is the diverse marketplace of new media consumers. “Here in New York City, your product gets tested by journalists & fashionistas, which helps make a better rounded product” This testing market ultimately gives you a better product that appeals to different tastes.

…whoof. Is that enough hyperlocal for you? For the full run-down, check out Jeremy Caplan’s storify of the entire summit and Street Fight’s own detailed recaps. Thanks very much to the Street Fight team for an amazing first conference.